Hello Papa

Here is our new Nigerian buck Papa (that's the name his previous owners gave him). He arrived at the farm Friday night.

We got him from a farm in Auburn, where he bred Nigerian does. We brought him in our little Honda Civic, with a tarp on the floor, and some hay over it. Papa was a little nervous at first, but quickly calmed down, and was very calm for the rest of the hour of the trip home.
Since we arrived home late at night, he spent the night in the barn alone. Saturday morning at feeding time, I let Achille, our Nubian doe, enter the barn. They were talking to each other before I opened the stall door. Papa appeared afraid at first, since Achille is a little bigger than him, but that passed quickly. They both went on the pasture, and lost interest with each other for the first few hours. In the early afternoon, Achille approach him and put her nose in his side. He didn't seem much interested. Interesting behavior from Achille though. Later, I walked them through the entire pasture. They stayed close to each other and to me, Papa being the one seeking my attention the most. They stayed together for the rest of the day.
Papa is a very friendly buck. If he does his job well, he will be a great addition to the farm. Now it is just up to Achille to get in heat...

Goodbye Poppy

Poppy passed this morning. During the snow storm, her and Achille (her daughter, on the left in the picture above) did not want to leave the shed, with the pasture covered by one foot of snow, so I gave them an alfalfa mix. The bale was at the bottom of the pile, and has been resting on a plastic tarp probably for several years. I didn't notice that the bottom of the bale (tarp side) was completely moldy. Poppy got contaminated with mold, which is toxic to ruminants. She got a bad diarrhea, which literally took life out of her.
It was hard to see her getting weaker and weaker, then walking like a drunk goat(due to weakness), and finally resting down.
This is a hard lesson. Poppy was a good goat, and brought two cute goat kids to our farm. Winter can be hard on animals, Nubian goats are not cold weather animals, and even though our pasture give them almost ideal conditions in the summer, they need care in the winter, which is where I did not provide well enough for them.
To accompany her passing, we will make a bon fire ... with the remainder of the old moldy alfalfa mix still laying in the barn.
Goodbye poppy.

Lessons Learned from our black Spanish Turkey

We raised and processed our heritage turkey as if it was a commercial breed. This was a mistake. Heritage breeds take longer to raise than commercial breeds. Last year, we let our commercial breeds grow a little more after they reached commercial size, and they tasted tested delicious. We did the same with our broilers, with the same results. With the Heritage turkey, we actually processed him before it reached full size, because I didn't realize it would take longer. We also bought it late in the season, because we were too busy. Next year, we will have to be better organized. Heritage turkeys take 8-9 months to reach maturity.
I would like to try White Midget turkeys next year. If possible, we will keep a tom and two hens for breeding. The white midget takes 32 weeks to grow to maturity, so for thanksgiving, we need to get the poults early to mid April at the latest. At the end of its life, it is good to set the turkey in a small pen for 2 weeks before processing to reduce exercize, which makes the meat tender. High carbohydrate feed also makes it build up some fat.

Black Spanish Turkey

This past Thanksgiving, we ate our Black Spanish Turkey tom. We have had that turkey for about 6 months, and we became attached to him. Since he learned how to fly, every night, he would roost on the upper deck railing, so that he could see us through the window. When during the day I would go in the field, he would follow me like a dog. Pretty interesting bird. Then came Thanksgiving. So we processed it, and it was hard. Lots of mixed feelings. Now it is eaten, and we are thinking of what to do next year. Certainly, more than one turkey, so we don't get attached. Probably a different breed, the Black Spanish don't taste better than the Bronze. We may try the Bourbon Red.
Here are pictures of our Black Spanish tom:

Rat Hunt Third Night

The Zapper caught one big rat last night. The pipe trap and the Snapper did not get tripped. Total kill is 3.
Considering the size of the 3 kills, I doubt the Snapper can kill one of those rats, it is simply too small.
The Zapper is a very nice device that can kill big size rats. Here it is:
[ Rat Zapper ]

Rat Hunt Second Night

Last night the rats tripped my pipe trap, but did not get caught. They may have walked above the pipe. I also had a Rat Zapper Ultra, an electric trap that electrocutes rats humanely, setup. The rats ate the bait, but since I forgot to turn it on, no catch... It is on now! Finally, I had a Snap-E plastic rat trap set in the garage, and it tripped, but the rat got away .. with one missing front leg. I reset it as well. So the count is:

• Pipe trap = 2 caught, 2 killed, one missed.
• Zapper = no catch (was just set today).
• Snap-E = 1 catch, escaped injured.

Homemade Rat Trap Success

I finally caught the rat that was drilling the floor of my barn. Our metal barn is built on a wood foundation resting on gravel. The rats have an easy game drilling tunnels under the wood beams, which weakens the 30 years old beams. They steal food and garden seeds, and leave a mess behind.
I have been trying to catch the rat responsible of this for some time, using a pipe trap. The pipe is resting horizontally on an axis in its center. Once the rat gets in and passed the middle, the pipe then flips vertically, the rats falls in the bottom of the pipe and is stuck there.
That did not work very well. The rat would get in there, fall in the bottom, eat all the bait, and somehow get back out.
Next try was to remove the end cap, and set the pipe above a metal garbage can. Instead of falling in the bottom of the pipe, the rat would fall in the garbage can, and would get stuck there. A foot of water in the garbage can would prevent the rat from jumping back out, and would also drown it, trapped rats can attack you.
After a few unsuccessful trials where the rat would trip the trap and eat the bait, but get away, I finally got him. I actually got two rats at once (which raises the question: how many are they?), and immediately reset the trap. So here is the homemade rat trap:

Click on the image for full size.
The piece of 2x4 at the entrance keeps the pipe in position. Once the rats pass the middle and start moving the pipe, the piece of 2x4 falls, which increases the imbalance and causes the pipe to tilt more rapidly.
Here is the inside of the pipe, with the bait (you can see the piece of 2x4 resting on top of the pipe at the other end):

Here, the pipe after the rats tripped the trap:

Notice how the pipe end just comes to the top of the garbage can, so that the rats slide nicely into it. Here is the graphic result:

I did not expect to catch two at once. They are big with that. Since the pipe does not come back into position after the trap tripped, they were inside the pipe at the same time. Cool catch! So the trap has been reset. I will eventually have a more permanent setup, but for now, this is working well.